If you owned a Sega Genesis from way back in “the day”, chances are you’ve run across a game called Contra: Hard Corps. Part of Konami’s military shooter series, Hard Corps was easily considered one of the hardest of the bunch. If the onslaught of soldiers coming your way didn’t kill you, the multi-screen bosses did. That feeling of “old-school”-ness returns next week with Hard Corps: Uprising, a prequel that opens up the story a slight bit more, while giving you plenty of enemies to shoot at. The story doesn’t really make much sense, but you’re essentially one of two soldiers (a male and/or a female) fighting back against a tyrannical army with a penchant for over-the-top robotics, including a multi-laser Cyclops and a robotic snake with turrets in its scales. You’ve got a number of weapons to choose from, including a revitalized spread gun, a cool homing laser and your routine machine gun. Some weapons are better than others, as we didn’t care for the limited range of the grenade launcher. Still, you can switch between two of them, though you lose your weapon if you’re hit.
Should you have played any of the previous Contra games, Hard Corps: Uprising will feel very familiar to you. The run-and-gun gameplay is mostly unchanged from the series, save for the ability to use an action button for reflecting. (It’s a crapshoot at best.) Otherwise, you’re blasting everything in sight, while using a stand-and-aim tactic once in a while and dashing in other sections. (Standing and aiming takes practice, thanks to the odd placement on the trigger buttons.) The variety of Hard Corps makes it truly special. One minute you’re riding a self-destructing train; the next, you’re rocket sledding as you attempt to outrun a killer robot on wheels. This game is ridiculously hard in Arcade Mode. In fact, we’ve died so many damn times we’ve lost count. However, the new Rising Mode will cut you a break as needed. Here, you can play through each stage without needing to go through previous ones, so you can practice. Furthermore, new abilities become available depending on the points you earn, enabling better health and power-up abilities, which really come in handy as the enemy count grows in each stage. You can also play online with a friend through Xbox Live, and check out high scores to see how others are faring.
What stands out about Hard Corps: Uprising is its art style. Rather than stick with the routine Contra design that’s worked so well in previous games, Konami turned to Arc System Works, the folks behind BlazBlue and Guilty Gear. The effect is astounding, and not the least bit distracting. The hand-drawn art is fantastic, while the level design retails the same “hard as hell” logic that made other Contra games click. This is truly a wonderful-looking game, probably the best one in the series to date. The sound could’ve fared better, though. While we’re big fans of the synthesized rock tunes (the classic Contra theme among them), the voice acting gets a little tiring. Most of the time, you’re hearing soldiers taunt you one second, then dying the next. It’s a trend that really makes you want to kill them more quickly – which isn’t entirely a bad thing for a game like this. Despite its tough-as-nails challenge setting and somewhat distracting audio, Hard Corps: Uprising is a blast, a slick mix of old-school shooting euphoria and new-school artwork. When it arrives on Xbox Live Arcade next week, you shouldn’t dare miss this Uprising.
